Coffeehouse Rules
by Wyld Stallyns
Summary: When new Assistant District Attourney Amanda O'Malley arrives in Neptune, things seem to have taken a turn for the worse for a certain recently arrested A-List film star. With a trial hanging in the balance, will Amanda get the assistance she needs from local lawman Sheriff Don Lamb, or will he be a thorn in her side? AU, set after s1. Spoilers!
1. The Wing Gambit

Chapter 1

His computer took forever to download the video, and he waited with one hand looped impatiently through his coffee mug. With the announcement of Aaron Echolls' murder trial only moments away, Sheriff Don Lamb knew that things in Neptune were about to get crazy. The media were all over these kind of events like white on rice; it wouldn't take long for the place to become a zoo. The video started playing when it felt like it, the weathered but still attractive face of Channel 9's most experienced reporter, Hallie Dawson, looking straight down the tube. There was an inset picture of the accused, washed-up former blockbuster action star Aaron Echolls.

"I'm here at the Balboa County courthouse, where Judge Peters has just handed down a trial date in the case of the murder of Lilly Kane, the daughter of Californian software magnate Jake Kane." A picture of Lilly Kane splashed onto the screen, with Dawson's voice droning with mechanical professionalism over the top of it. Lamb had seen enough, even though he needed to hear the story. He spun in his office chair as the background elements of the tragic tale unfolded, keeping the audience in suspense of what they actually wanted to know: the damn trial date.

So much had happened since the death of that one, little blonde rich girl. Keith Mars had been ousted as Sheriff, over his inability to make an arrest and the manner in which he had all but harassed the victim's family. He'd been promoted and had promptly scraped together enough evidence to arrest - and convict - his favourite suspect of the crime. The bad man had been taken to prison and society had been short one more psychopath, or so he had thought until the unmentionable had happened. A short, blonde unmentionable, who was a little too apt to poke her nose where it didn't belong.

Aaron Echolls had been placed in custody for an attack on Miss Veronica Mars and her father, the former Sheriff. New evidence came to light. There were tapes of Echolls and Lilly Kane together - sex tapes. Veronica's statement, together with her and her father's medical reports, had been the corroboration required to keep Echolls in custody. Shouldering the frame of the window in his second-story office, Lamb looked out at the main strip of Neptune below. Strangely, there was a crowd of reporters gathered in front of the building. Dawson was just winding to a close, over by his keyboard.

"Mr Echolls has been unavailable to comment on the case. With the obviously troubled star's future in the balance while he remains in police custody, fans can only hope that the trial - set down for September 17th - comes quickly and delivers some kind of relief for Echolls and his career. Back to you in the studio, Robyn." Lamb snorted into his coffee, and took another swig. He couldn't feel sorry for Echolls, or any of the other 09er hierarchy. That he was forced to pay lip service to them and see to the trivial problems they always came running to him with was just another nail in his already heavily decorated coffin. He didn't know whether the man was guilty or not, but one thing was for sure.

Either way, he was gonna get his man.

A sleek silver sedan pulling up in front of the crowd outside diverted his attention. He leaned closer to the window, eyes cast down to better survey the situation and see whether or not he would need to send Sacks out there to break it up. The press all moved to look into the windows of the car, just as a professional-looking woman got out. Squinting into the afternoon sun that bathed the avenue, he tried to see the licence plate of the car. He swallowed hastily when he recognised it was from the District Attorney's vehicle pool.

"Je-sus." He shoved his cup onto the window ledge and made a beeline for the door.

"Sheriff, I think that something's going on-" Inga, their office aide, called out to him as he streaked past her for the stairs.

"Got it," was his terse reply.

Whatever she'd been expecting, it hadn't been this. Reporters spread themselves around the car as she pulled in to the kerb, swarming like bees shaken roughly from their hive. Amanda scrabbled for her purse and her briefcase as camera lenses were pressed almost to the glass of the car windows, flashes popping. If she'd thought they'd back off once they realised she was just the Assistant District Attorney then she had been wrong for the second time; it seemed that the paps were happy to converge on anyone as long as they managed to get their pound of flesh. Even though she was grateful that her boss was working a really disturbing, sensitive case in the northern parts of the county, she suddenly wished that she hadn't been assigned to lay the ground work on this one.

She bit the bullet, flinging open the door despite the reporters hovering around it. The buzz of their questions surrounded her and she blocked them out, holding out her briefcase to gain a little room as she dragged herself from the car and slammed the door shut behind her. The walkway from the kerb to the doors of the Sheriff's Office wasn't exactly drawn out, but running through a gauntlet of hard-nosed reporters wasn't on the top of her to do list. Knowing that the sooner she got inside the better off she would be, Amanda drew her lips into a determined line and started that unmistakable march people used when attempting to avoid questions they had no intention of answering.

"Miss O'Malley! Is there a reason why your boss isn't here? Isn't the murder trial of the decade enough to draw him away from Uranus?" She ignored the man and moved resolutely past him. Unfortunately the reporters were like weeds - get rid of one, and a half dozen more sprang up in their place hardier than ever. With a couple of microphones thrust in her face, Amanda tried to sidestep on the path and found with dismay that she was surrounded.

"No comment," she commented to the throng at large, using her briefcase as a way to shove them out of her path. She felt it connect with someone's knee, and she might have felt a tiny bit sorry about that, if it had meant they were human enough to feel it and get out of her way.

"Miss O'Malley are you concerned with what some might term as your 'questionable experience'? Surely it's a big break for your career to be working on a case like this, but there are some members of the community who would feel more comfortable if a more seasoned prosecutor were to take the helm."

That was plenty personal enough, and if there was one thing that Amanda didn't stand for it was people prying into her private life. She rounded on the reporter, a brassy redhead who wore far too much makeup, and opened her mouth to let fly with the pert retort that was already on her lips. She was saved from making a damaging career mistake when her briefcase was lifted quickly out of her hands, effectively sidetracking her. She looked at the Sheriff - a man she knew by reputation only - who held her briefcase out with much more authority than she would have been able to manage and slipped an arm around her shoulders politely in order to guide her through the mob. She was momentarily grateful for the interference and allowed herself to be herded towards the door.

And then he said, with a smirk, "No further questions." And mostly she thought he was a dick.


	2. Minority Attack

Chapter 2

As the door to the foyer pressed closed behind them, she stepped out from underneath the Sheriff's control, slinking across the terracotta tiles of the foyer so that she could regain some of her dignity. Tugging on the front of her blazer to settle it back in place, she was annoyed to look across at him to see that he his eyebrows were hitched upwards in amusement at her. She reached across to take back her briefcase - she wasn't entirely sure that she might not still need to use it as a weapon. Don Lamb's reputation preceded him; she had never particularly gotten along with arrogant chauvinists, and she wasn't about to make exceptions. Particularly not when they were in the habit of fingering innocent men for murder in the first.

For a moment she simply stood there feeling ruffled, even though she knew her hair was still in the knot she had tied up in that morning and her clothes were still pressed crisp within an inch of their tolerance. She frowned as she noticed him give her the once over, as though he couldn't believe she was... something. There? A woman? A young woman? Pompous jerk. He would be exactly the kind of guy who would think she was useless, no matter the fact she has graduated in the top five percent of her class at Harvard. Her chin lifted on instinct, and she stared him right in the eye even though he was much taller than she was.

"Yes?" she asked defensively.

He shrugged. "Nothin'. Just would've thought you'd want to thank me for saving your ass out there. They're out for blood."

"What else is new?" Amanda snapped.

He took a step towards her suddenly, leaning in as though to say something he didn't want overheard. His eyes were narrowed as he looked down into her face.

"You're welcome," he murmured, before turning to walk up the stairs, leaving her with little else to do but follow.

She looked too damn young to have gone to college, much less law school. He had an odd expression on his face as he showed her up the stairwell and eventually into his office; a combination of amusement and confusion and anything in between. That she was here was a given, he supposed. Knowing that the new evidence would have to be reviewed and disclosure made to the defence, it had really only been a matter of time. That she had arrived more or less dead on the minute the trial date had been announced told him that either she was psychic, or she was nervous about her first big rodeo.

If she thought that meant that he'd go easy on her, then she had another thing coming. He swiped his coffee cup as he passed the window in his office en route to his desk, settling back in his chair with an outstretched hand at a visitor's spot in front of him. He watched her glance around - either it was interest on her face, or she was completely at sea - before she stepped forward and took a seat opposite him.

"So, Miss..?" he prompted.

"O'Malley," she supplied reluctantly, with a raised brow.

"Miss O'Malley." He attempted a smile. Ten points for effort, he always said. "What brings you here?"

Poised on the edge of his chair, arms folded over his desk, he felt in a better position to watch her squirm. It was a tactic he employed with some regularity, usually with success. He seemed to have succeeded in throwing her for a loop. She crossed her legs and leaned down to retrieve the briefcase she'd placed by the foot of the chair. Opening it with a click, she retrieved a clipboard. A clipboard. He hadn't seen one of them since the damn 80's. Quirking his eyebrows higher with amusement, Lamb swilled his coffee and took a swig. He deliberately didn't offer her one - she wouldn't be staying long enough to need any kind of refreshment.

"The Kane case."

"You don't say," he replied, switching tact and relaxing back on his chair. He laced his fingers together in his lap, indicative of his unwillingness to help her at all much less with investigating one of his screw ups. "I knew sooner or later Benson would send over a hound to sniff around the files. Sorry that it had to be you."

"Hound?" she asked incredulously. "I beg your pardon, but-"

"It's pretty desperate, even for him. I don't mean any disrespect, Miss O'Malley," he lied, raising the tips of his fingers, "but you're out of your league with this one. It's not the kind of case a greenhorn should be assigned."

"Greenhorn? This is hardly the Wild West, Sheriff," Amanda scoffed. "I'm perfectly capable, otherwise I'm sure that District Attorney Benson wouldn't have given me free reign here."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you," he replied darkly. "Do you really think this is the kind of case that he wouldn't love to retire on?"

"I don't know what you're implying," she stated, hoping to call his bluff, "but I don't like it. say what you have to say, or can it and hand the files over, Sheriff."

Wow. He didn't know where Benson had roped her in from, but it seemed that the aging prosecutor had finally managed to do something right in the tail-end of his flagging career. Suddenly he was struck with the impulse to shatter her illusions about her boss, who was a man of less-than-stellar morals himself, but something in her eyes made him hold back.

"Fine," he sat forward in his chair again. He watched her for a moment, and when he finally decided that it wasn't worth the trouble trusting her could cause, he stood. "Follow me."

The sooner she got out of this testosterone-soaked hovel, the better. She'd never liked police stations, because to her they always felt somehow tainted, as though true justice was taking the day off and had left the people lounging in the cells and those clustering around the counter to their own devices. This one was no different. It didn't help that she knew exactly what kind of Sheriff Lamb was, and how he kept his men in check (or rather, didn't). She was going to need all the help she could get from this department if she was going to stand a hope in hell of cracking into this case, and the fact that he already seemed less than cooperative didn't bode well for her work. Of course, she didn't make things any easier, and as she followed him from his office pretending that she didn't want to throw up a little at his enforced swagger, she knew that it wasn't going to work. She couldn't put away the side of her that wanted to call him out on his bullshit - and what was more, she didn't _want_ to. He was in a position of authority in this town, and the fact that it meant so little to him only outraged her all the more.

Amanda had been surrounded by guys like him her whole life. Middle-class jocks who wanted to desperately to break into that upper tier that they thought being an asshole was a sure-fire way to gain approval when it really only earned them disdain. Through high school she'd been persecuted by them, too nerdy and uncool to be on their radar in any other capacity. College had been much the same, first as an undergrad where they had discounted anything she had to say out of ignorance and then later as a grad student where they had done the same thing only out of fear that she would make them look bad in front of their professors. In this day and age, one would think that independent, intelligent women would be perfectly acceptable. There were those amongst society who still felt threatened, which only made her try harder.

Sheriff Lamb couldn't have done anything more detrimental to his career than treat her like his inferior.

She flashed the office aide a smile; the middle-aged woman with kind eyes glanced at her boss as he sauntered past her desk and then offered Amanda a shy smile in return. What must that be like, Amanda wondered. She was already fed up with Lamb after five minutes spent in his company and as someone his equal, let alone having to actually take orders from him on a daily basis. She steeled herself, just wanting to get this over with as soon as humanly possible. The quicker she got the files and could head back to the office, the less chance there was of her saying something to 'Neptune's Finest' that could get her in trouble with her new boss.

He was pissed off that he was going to have to give her access to the evidence. Not because he doubted her right to it; heck, he would be glad to see that smirk wiped from Aaron Echolls' face permanently. But he had done the legwork on Abel Coonz – he had been the one who had listened to that anonymous tip over and over, who had searched that scummy little houseboat and found the sneakers and backpack that would transform it all from circumstantial to beyond reasonable doubt. Coonz' confession had been the frosting on the cake, and they had gone through all the motions of the trial before the killer had been locked away. It had all been squared off, another case closed under his reign as Sheriff. His statistics were stacking up nicely, and with constant whispers around town about incorporation, it couldn't hurt to have his badge looking extra shiny.

And she was threatening to rip it from his chest.

If it turned out that Abel Coonz had been innocent all along, then he would fry under the heat of the city's scorn. Those still loyal to his predecessor, bumbling Keith Mars, would want his head and he wasn't ready to go down. The thought of having to hand the reins back over to him, with his smart-mouthed daughter watching from the wings, was enough to make Don grit his teeth as he swiped his security card over the lock beside the door to the evidence room. He was one of only three people with access to this room, and strongly believed that it was two too many people. Too many fingers in the pie only lead to a sticky mess. He shoved the door open and stepped through, squaring his already broad shoulders as he was apt to do when feeling insecure.

He squared his shoulders a _lot_.

The room was thin and long, with shelves on either side packed to the roof with all manner of stuff. Rather than walking through, he stopped in the doorway, one arm stretched out to hold the door open so that Amanda could move through.

"What a gentleman," she muttered sarcastically, as she slipped past him. He smirked at her determination not to brush past him, before following her down the narrow aisle. The door slammed shut heavily behind him now that he was no longer holding it, and she jumped slightly at the noise.

"Nervous, are we?" he asked, eyebrows raised as he cruised down the aisle towards her, She glanced at him and then turned away, hand poised to pull a filing box from the shelf. "Don't touch," he reminded her.

"They belong to the City," she replied. "And I work for the City. Technically, I can look at what I want."

"Not in my evidence locker, you can't," he said darkly. She only smirked at him in return.

Deciding he'd had enough of her little games, Lamb moved forward to pass her so that he could get this over and done with. Unlike her, however, he made no attempts to avoid physical contact. She breathed a small groan of disgust. He continued past her to where the Kane files were kept, in a safe at the back of the room. Even though there were plenty of people who would argue that such precautions in a protected room in a manned Sheriff's office, Lamb knew better – it wouldn't be the first time that someone from the DA's office had been bought off. These files were the most important files the town had ever seen, and he kept them guarded well. It was why he didn't care, when he heard her shift impatiently behind him as he crouched to fiddle with the combination dial.

Even though she wasn't looking forward to wading her way back through the press outside, she was looking forward to being away from this jackass. Every word out of his mouth was filled with an arrogance she didn't think he had any business feeling, and she longed to give him a piece of her mind. Any kindness she might have attributed to him when he had rescued her outside had been deftly taken out of the equation when she had realised that everything they said about him was true. She didn't have time for idiot lawmen with God complexes. When he grabbed an archive box out of the safe and stood, she realised that things were about to get real. This could be the case of her career, this could mean the difference between her working cases in LA, or New York or even moving somewhere like London. She'd only come back to Neptune after college to be with her mom, but in reality she hated this town. The whole 09er hierarchy did nothing for her; she couldn't stand to help those who didn't help themselves.

Which was precisely why she hated that she was now technically in league with Sheriff Lamb. He was the poster boy for everything she hated about Neptune's privileged elite; fixing court hearings in their favour, buying off witnesses and falsifying evidence. They didn't give a damn about the innocent people that they hurt in the bargain, and it made her sick to her stomach that they got away with it all, more often than not.

Amanda reached out for the box when he held it up to her, hefting it. She'd heard about the original case while she was away in Massachusetts, and had watched the media circus from afar. If she was truthful with herself, Amanda would admit that she was more than interested in what the files contained. How many times had her professors reiterated that sometimes fresh eyes on a cold case could crack it right open? Her vanity told her that there was more to this than met the eye, and that if anyone was going to find a new thread to unravel in this mystery then it would be her.

"Thanks, Sheriff," she told him, turning to head back through the door. The box was pretty heavy, and she didn't want to have the bottom of it fall out anywhere near him. Giving him the excuse to bend down and pick them up – and do anything else while he was down there – was not on the top of her list of priorities. She heard him stand up, and it only made her move quicker. She didn't want to give him any opportunity to take the box off her and carry it to her car. The only thing she hated more than a chauvinist was a chauvinist pretending to be a gentleman. But he surprised her.

"Everything in that box is logged, Miss O'Malley," he called after her.

She paused, turning to look at him smugly over her shoulder. "Good," she told him. "I'll be sure to make an inventory of my own as soon as I'm back at the DA's office. Then we can cross-reference it and make sure that nothing's gone missing on _your_ watch." Amanda offered him a sweet little smile that was false as hell, and made a break for it.

The bluish glow that radiated from his computer screen made the Sheriff's office take on a whole new light. It looked shadier, like something more inclined towards hiding a secret rather than exposing one. He never worked with the light off in his office at night; he liked the good citizens of Neptune to be able to look up at the building and know the kind of man-hours that went into keeping them safe. But tonight the blinds were drawn, the lights were off and even the small desk lamp that he illuminated on those rare occasions when he was feeling generous and would invite Deputy Sacks in for a quick drink and a game of cards was snuffed out. Snuffed out, just like Lilly Kane.

Something about Little Miss Priss, the new Assistant DA didn't sit quite right with him. She was far too self-assured for a recent graduate; either she really overestimated her own abilities in the field of law, or she had an ace in her pocket. Not being the kind of guy who liked to hedge his bets and leave himself short, Lamb intended to find out exactly which it was. Which was why he was here, laid back in his faithful office chair, while he ran every possible background check her could think of. He was yet to get a hit, but if nothing local turned up, he could always try other arenas. Hell, he'd sift through Interpol if it would mean settling the nagging thought he had that she was up to no good.

He stared up at the ceiling, hands laced together behind his head, as he pondered what would happen with the Echolls trial. He wouldn't be lucky enough to get a second confession to the same murder, that was for sure. Unfortunately for him, Aaron Echolls had money to splash around like water. His legal team would be comprised of the most ruthless, determined lawyers in the country – who would all maintain that sex tapes didn't equate to homicide and that a confession from a convicted man didn't get dialled down just because a jaded little girl and her washed-up daddy said otherwise.

On one hand, Lamb was glad. He really didn't need the case being reopened, or an appeal for Coontz making him seem like a trigger-happy amateur. He didn't need to deal with the fallout of Echolls being convicted, and he certainly didn't want to have Keith and Veronica Mars rubbing it in after the fact. But somewhere deep down, Don could see the writing on the wall. Something in his gut told him that this new ADA would make a good case against Echolls. She wouldn't be short on witnesses – even the guy's kid, Logan, couldn't stand him – and it was a short leap from Echolls having murdered Lilly Kane to then being tied to the suspicious 'suicide' of his wife.

He had just embarked on the beginnings of a rather impressive sigh when his computer bleeped. He blinked, for a moment not believing that he had actually managed to get a hit on her. She had come across as someone keen, green and squeaky-clean; that his gut instinct had been right was both surprising and pleasing. His breath wooshed out of him as he sat forward in his chair, scooting it towards his desk as he leaned in to learn about whatever skeletons Miss Amanda O'Malley had in her closet. But whatever he had anticipated, it wasn't something as mundane as her having been pulled over for a DUI by his predecessor at the ripe old age of nineteen, when she was home from college on Spring Break.

His shoulders sagged with the depressing reality of it. He had nothing on her, and it would continue to bug him because, as he well knew, everyone in this town had their issues. Aside from her minor indiscretion, Amanda was clean as a whistle. Lived at home with mom and dad, until she left for college. It wasn't until he realised that he envied her cookie-cutter upbringing that he noticed her mother's maiden name, right there on his screen.

Fitzpatrick.


	3. Decoy

Chapter 3

Sheriff Lamb wasn't the only person who was working that particular night. As soon as she had gotten home, Amanda had taken to sifting through the archive box she now had in her possession. It was incredible to see how badly the filing had been done, considering the importance of the case, and she found it difficult to get started with any kind of precision while there were bits of paper peeking out at all angles from the dozen or more manilla files now taking up residence on her desk. She had first set herself the unhappy task of stacking them neatly into piles on top of their files, and then realised that if she wanted to make any real headway they would need to be in chronological order. An hour and a half later, Amanda figured she had earned herself a coffee, and made a fresh pot.

She didn't know what it was about this case, but she felt like there was something waiting to be discovered. That Lamb hadn't discovered it first would only make her triumph all the sweeter; she laughed to think of herself getting one up on him when he seemed so damn sure of himself. With a steaming mug of Joe in one hand she wandered back to her desk, and turned to her laptop so that she could make her own notes. There was a process she liked to follow when reviewing cases. The first read-through was to take everything in, providing her with a broad foundation on which to base her deeper digging. Subsequent scans would reveal more and more about the case, almost like peeling away layers. There might be witnesses who didn't correlate that she could look into further. Evidence might have been missed, which she would know from going through crime scene photos with a fine toothed comb.

Either way, she'd like to bet that she would almost certainly discover that Neptune would have been much, much better off with Sheriff Mars at the helm.

Her first skimming of the files took a little over three hours, and her coffee buzz was starting to wear off. She got up from her desk, stretching her arms above her head as she wandered her small apartment by way of a break. There were a lot of her mother's things here - Amanda didn't think it would be too long before the older woman moved in officially. It was getting harder for Mrs O'Malley to keep their large suburban family home on the outskirts of town; the cleaning was a huge chore, to say nothing of the yard work. Amanda might have minded having her mom come to stay, if she'd had a sex life - or any kind of social life to speak of. As it was, she'd always gotten along well with her mom and thought it might be comforting for them both to be together. After her father had died, the two women were the only family each other had left.

Or at least, the only family they cared to know about.

Having obtained a snack and more coffee, Amanda settled back down at her desk. It was going to be a long night, but then it wouldn't be the first time she'd lost sleep over a case. This one was deserving; she had to believe that she could make a difference here in Neptune (or at least enough of a difference that she could move on to change the world in a different place). She wouldn't be able to tell in the morning just exactly when she fell asleep with her face pressed uncomfortably against her laptop keyboard.

His cell was ringing.

There was only one thing that a call at this time of the night could mean, and he didn't know whether to be pleased that he was the one who made the tough calls or be pissed that Sacks couldn't even handle one damn night shift without interrupting his sleep. Deciding on the latter, Lamb rolled over with a groan and groped the night-stand for he phone before pressing it to his hear.

"What?" he grunted.

"Sorry boss," Sacks said anxiously. Lamb could hear sirens behind the voice of his nervous Deputy; police and fire, by the sounds of it. His interest was piqued enough that rolled into more of a sitting position on the bed, one elbow pressed resolutely into the mattress.

"What?" Lamb repeated.

"I'm at the DA's building," explained Sacks, talking loudly in that annoying way people have when they think they can't be heard. "There was a bomb."

At this, Don sat up properly. All vestiges of sleep were now dismissed, and he could feel his adrenaline starting to kick in. "When?"

"About 2:40am," replied Sacks. "I heard the blast even over at the Department, and got 911 dispatch pretty much instantly."

"Shit." Throwing back the covers, he began to go about a hurried version of his normal morning routine, only several hours too early. "Any casualties?"

"I don't know, boss. It looks like ground zero out here."

"Shit," Lamb repeated.

"I think you better get down here. The press are hovering, and I don't know what to tell them. We haven't managed to work out whether anyone was in the building or not, and there are civilians that could get the way of any rescue attempts that might be needed."

"And here I was thinking I might head back to sleep," Lamb retorted sarcastically. "Don't talk to anyone, especially the press. I'll be there in fifteen."

He'd be there in ten, but Sacks didn't need to know that. In an attempt to quieten the strange feeling of dread that had sprung up in him, Don cycled through his phone contacts until he got the cell number for Benson. It rang out while he was pulling on his shirt. He then tried the number for Miss O'Malley that he had pulled off of the DA's website earlier that day, and got no answer from her either.

_Shit._

When she heard a thundering on the door to her apartment and peeled her face off of her laptop, it was after 4am. Amanda swallowed, hoping to make her throat feel less dry as she mentally kicked herself for falling asleep before she'd managed to cover all what she had meant to. She blinked to prepare herself to answer the door, but she didn't know if anything could prepare her for the sight that met her eyes. A war-torn looking Sheriff stood in the hall outside, one hand lifted so that he could brace himself against the door frame. He looked as though he had been crawling through trash, and because he struck her as the kind of guy who didn't like to look anything but put-together, Amanda realised that something terrible must have happened.

"You look like shit," was her greeting, and even though he had likely been through hell or something similar, she couldn't help but feel smug that she'd managed to get the first dig in.

"Shucks, you too," he replied, his face serious before he squinted at her. "Is that a space bar imprinted on your cheek?"

Suddenly less sure of herself, Amanda rubbed a hand against her face. "What happened? Am I in some kind of trouble?"

"The opposite actually. You've clearly got someone watching out for you." He met her gaze as he alluded to her connection to the brutal Fitzpatricks; if she knew anything then it would show itself right now. Even as he took in her seemingly confused frown he couldn't say that he really believed that she didn't know about the bomb; the real reason was what time had she left the office?

"A bomb went off at the DA's building," Lamb told her, still watching for signs that she was concealing prior knowledge of the explosion. "Your boss is dead."

"What?" she breathed, reaching a hand out to take hold of the door frame not so very far away from where he gripped it himself. She looked down for a moment - processing the information, apparently – before she moved away from the door into her apartment itself. He followed, noticing the slump of her usually prim shoulders as she sat on the edge of the couch, smoothing her top down.

"I'm sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say to her at this point. He'd never liked Benson; the man was the worst sort of crook which wasn't the best quality Lamb could have asked for in a District Attorney. But that didn't mean that he'd wanted the guy dead, unlike whoever had set that bomb. The blast had been relatively well contained, but even the mildest explosive working on an old building that had been affected by coastal weather conditions for decades would do a lot of damage. The building had ultimately crumbled – there was no way it would be in use again. The insurance claim would be through the roof, pun intended. As if it wasn't bad enough that he would have a coronial inquest into Benson's demise, Lamb would also have to deal with the insurance jockeys crawling through Neptune.

Miss O'Malley wasn't saying anything. He stood awkwardly to the side of her living room, thinking that he might be better just leaving her to deal with this however she would. But there were questions that needed asking, and he wouldn't be able to deal with this himself unless he knew the answers.

"Someone wanted that evidence gone," Lamb told her. She turned to look up at him, her face devoid of tears but not of the confusion that comes along with losing someone you knew for even the shortest amount of time.

"What evidence?" She was frowning now, her eyes narrowed at him.

"The evidence you collected from me yesterday."

He hadn't expected her explosion. "Don't be ridiculous," she growled, standing up and throwing the pillow she had taken hold of back onto the couch. "There are lots of reasons why someone would want to blow up a DA's office, Sheriff. You shouldn't get ahead of yourself here."

"Look," he said, pressing his lips into a stern line. "I'm glad that you weren't hurt in the explosion-"

"—that's awful nice of you," she interrupted him. His eyes hardened as he raised a brow in her direction.

"—but without that evidence, I'm afraid it will be next to impossible for you to prosecute Aaron Echolls."

Amanda took a deep breath. Getting the news about Benson would have been tough enough even if it had been delivered over the phone, but at least she would have had time to think about it. With Sheriff Lamb hovering in her living room as though he expected her to either break down into a teary mess or coldly confess to being a bomber, she didn't know which way to turn in order to get her head around the situation. Benson was dead. Her first question on that front was why had Benson even been in Neptune? The only reason she was working the Echolls case was because he hadn't been in town. What could he have been doing in the office at that time of night? What had he been working on?

Why was Lamb staring at her?

The other shoe dropped, and she couldn't stop the wry smile from wrenching up the corners of her mouth as soon as she heard Lamb mentioned the evidence. She shook her head slightly in disbelief.

"You're incredible," she told him, narrowing her eyes at him when he looked as though he might be impressed by that assessment. "You show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night to tell me that my boss just died in a deliberate explosion, and all you're worried about is your fucking evidence?"

She didn't swear often, and that he had managed to get her so worked up that she had was another reason for her to dislike him. The almost calm shrug that he offered her in response to her theoretical question was another.

"Well I'm about to make your day," she told him, striding over to her office nook where her laptop had long since turned itself into battery saver mode. She held a hand out to indicate the very same evidence box that he had given her under duress the day before. Placing her other hand on her hip, Amanda stared him down.

"Guess you can sleep easy, after all. Thanks for stopping by, Sheriff. Your concern for the citizens of Neptune is commendable."

She kept her eyes trained on his, as they watched each other from opposite ends of the living room. In the end it seemed that he had to admit defeat, before he turned and showed himself out.

Amanda breathed a sigh of relief, once she no longer felt his unsettling green gaze on her. She moved to the kitchen to flick the coffee pot on, partly out of habit and partly because she knew that she wouldn't be going back to sleep anyway.

Not now.


	4. Exhibition

Chapter 4

"Can I get you a coffee, Sheriff?"

Don looked up from his computer to see Inga, hovering in his doorway. He flashed her a grateful half-smile, but shook his head. He didn't like the way she seemed worried about him, as though she of all people knew that he wasn't as strong as he made out. She only nodded, but there was something more in that simple, wordless gesture.

"Then I have the Mayor's office on line two." Inga stepped out, as he picked up the receiver and took the call.

"Lamb."

"Don, it's Gerry."

"Mayor Rutherford," he mused, intrigued as he sat back in his chair. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm sure you're aware that the… incident last night is going to have a significant knock-on effect," the Mayor explained.

Lamb leaned back in his chair, phone pressed to his ear and a slight frown on his face. "Sir?"

"The City is short of a building," Rutherford reminded him. "Not to mention all of the equipment and evidence that was with the DA for processing."

"We're also short a DA," Lamb said pointedly.

"Actually, we're short an assistant DA."

It took a few moments for this to sink in. Unless Miss O'Malley had fled town overnight (unlikely), Don thought he had a pretty good idea about what had happened.

"Are you sure that's wise, sir?" he asked. "She's only been in town for five minutes. I had to help her outrun the press outside my office yesterday."

"Benson had great faith in his new hire," the Mayor replied. "And I had great faith in Benson."

If you only knew how little that faith had gotten you, Lamb thought, but wisely kept to himself. He pursed his lips and glanced at the door when he caught movement there out of the corner of his eye. He was ready to shake his head at yet another offer for coffee when he realised that he had an audience.

Miss O'Malley watched him from the doorway, her hands tucked into the pockets of her coat. She looked calm but uncomfortable, and he tossed her a questioning look before he looked back to his computer screen. "Of course, sir. I'm sure that this is the best way forward," he said to the Mayor at last.

"I'm glad you think so, Lamb. It's for that reason that Miss O'Malley will be working out of the Sheriff's office until further notice."

His mouth felt dry. He couldn't protest, because he could still see her in his peripheral vision, lingering just outside his office. For a moment he clenched his teeth together, flexing his jaw in frustration. And then, because he knew that he didn't have a leg to stand on as far as calling this kind of shot went, Lamb decided that the best he could do was make her feel more uncomfortable than she already did. He swivelled in his chair to look directly at her, a smug smirk hovering on his unshaven face.

"I'll do everything in my power to make her feel welcome, sir."

"Knew I could count on you, Don."

Still smirking, he turned to hang up the phone. When he went to speak to Miss O'Malley, she was no longer at his door.

"There's stationary in that cupboard to your left," Inga was telling her, as she gave her the rudimentary tour of the tiny Sheriff's Department, "but please email me if there is anything you need that isn't already there."

"Thank you," Amanda said quietly, looking around the make-do bull pen that Neptune had been running since before she could remember. They had come full circle, back to the counter where Inga answered the phones.

"There will be desk space for you somewhere, but that will be-"

"—my decision," the Sheriff cut in, as he emerged from his office with his left hand poised at his belt buckle.

Amanda canted her head at him slightly. "Of course it is," she replied, earning herself a close-lipped smile from the man who was clearly enjoying this situation a little too much. "What'll it be, Sheriff? Janitor's closet? Bathroom cubicle?"

Inga looked from her boss to the unhappy newcomer and then back again before deciding that this was a conversation that she would be better off well away from. She made some excuse of having to stock the copier with paper and bowed out gracefully. Against her every impulse, Amanda stood her ground when he moved a step closer, holding one hand out to indicate that her new 'desk space' would be down the narrow hallway.

"Give me some credit," he said, stopping to open a door and flick a light switch.

For a moment, Amanda thought he was going to be a decent human being for five minutes altogether. And then he noticed that the entire right wall was that strange, shiny glass that was famous in police stations across the world. This was the interrogation room.

"You're _sick_," she remarked, refusing to walk in any farther than the door. "Is this part of your game? Stick me in here so you can watch me and do… _whatever?_"

At the accusation, his expression flattened. She wasn't about to back down on this, and stood tall when he turned back to face her. "Don't flatter yourself. It's the only office space we have," he told her. "I can't have you in the other room watching our interrogations – it would present issues in court."

He had her there, and he knew it. The bastard.

Lamb had never put much stock in that saying 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer', but he could definitely see the benefit in having the 'new DA' working out of his building. It wasn't that she was his enemy per se – hell, they were meant to be working together, after all, but there was still something about her that didn't sit quite right with him. He was normally the kind of guy who judged a woman's character by how well her jeans fit, so the fact that Amanda O'Malley was an attractive woman didn't overshadow his doubts about her told him that something was definitely up.

He was also more than slightly sure that her interesting connection to the Fitzpatricks had something to do with that, and he intended to find out what it was. Was the death of Benson simply a coincidence? Her saving the evidence from everything else that had been blown up – including her former boss – seemed a little too good to be true. She had been handed a promotion on a silver platter, the press were having a field day. It wouldn't be the first time that the Irish mobsters had done something this serious in Balboa county; in fact Lamb seemed to think they were well overdue.

The fact that she didn't look like your run-of-the-mill mob groupie didn't fool him one bit. He'd seen hookers that looked like supermodels, meth-heads that looked like they owned Fortune 500 companies (and for some of them, that wasn't too far from the truth). He wasn't fooled by her big brown eyes and sexy but practical wardrobe decisions; no matter what his deputies might think. When he left his office that afternoon to get one of his energy drinks from the fridge and the bull pen went suspiciously quiet, he realised he'd stumbled right into a conversation about the new arrival in the building.

"Don't let me interrupt," he smirked, sauntering towards Sacks and Leo en route to the fridge. Leo had that same sly smile he usually wore plastered all over his face, while Sacks actually managed to look somewhat uncomfortable. On his way past, Lamb bent to grab the magazine Sacks had been looking at – no doubt for the articles. He flipped it on its side for a better view, his eyebrows hitching in appreciation before he tossed it back on Sack's desk.

"It was a bogus subscription," his deputy asserted.

Lamb allowed himself a snort of laughter. "Shit." He shook his head, reaching for a Red Bull. "You fellas must think I was born yesterday. You better not let her see-"

"Shhh!" Sacks hissed, sitting straighter in his chair.

Lamb frowned, before he heard the tell-tale sound of heels clicking their way down the hall. Miss O'Malley appeared, coffee cup in hand. She stopped and stared at the three of them, clearly understanding that whatever they had just been discussing had had something to do with her.

"Need a refill," she explained, as Lamb concentrated on opening his own drink.

"G'head," he replied, waiting until she had walked past him and into the kitchen so that he could flash Sacks and Leo his signature smirk. Leo seemed unable to keep a straight face and swivelled back to face his computer. Sacks looked like he was ready to shit a brick.

"Comfortable?" he asked, his tone deceptively light. This was enough to undo Sacks, whose pursed lips made his moustache thinner and more ridiculous than it already was. Don grinned to himself, taking a swig of his drink.

"Yeah," she replied. "Thanks. I actually think that room is going to work out really well." She filled her mug with coffee, and then turned to look at him. He watched her in confusion as she smiled – a sweet, almost-friendly smile that made him feel uncomfortable - before she made for her 'office' again. On the way past she stopped, placing a light hand on his arm. In a strange change of pace, Lamb felt like _he_ suddenly wanted to back up away from _her_.

"I really have to thank you for taking the trouble," she told him. At least that's what he thought she was saying. He was looking down into her face, and her lips were moving and words were coming out. He shrugged; it seemed an appropriate response, given the radio silence of his deputies behind him.

"Hopefully I won't put you out for too long."

"S'fine," he replied, blinking at her rapid change of attitude. Her smile widened, and he frowned slightly, and then she was gone. She reached Sack's desk and hovered.

"Don't let me interrupt your reading time, Deputy," she told him with a small smirk, clicking her way back down the hall again and leaving all three men staring helplessly at each other in her wake.

_Idiots!_ She had barely closed the door when a disdainful laugh worked its way out of her, threatening to expose that little act for what it really was. She had only been in the building for one morning, and she already felt worse for poor Inga than she had originally thought possible. The male-centric positioning of a Sheriff's Department had never before bothered her overmuch – she didn't have to work there, after all. But now that she was working there, essentially, she just couldn't stand it. She didn't want to know why the milk carton in the communal fridge was always open, or why there were pictures of Heidi Klum plastered on the wall in the disabled restroom.

But one thing she did know was that it was all ancient history. She wouldn't work in those conditions, and even if the Mayor had been happy with the way things had been before, he wouldn't be by the time she was through with him. Lamb's days of going through the motions of being a Sheriff were over, and Amanda was all too happy to be the bearer of bad news. She settled back behind her desk with a smile on her face, one hand curled around her coffee mug. Right now, she had work to do on the Echolls case.

There was plenty of time to teach them all a lesson later.


	5. Adjournment

Chapter 5

He was exhausted. Getting into work early was a necessary evil, but it didn't mean that he couldn't feel a little bummed about it. He pulled into the parking lot in his cruiser, leaning over to grab his stuff from the passenger seat. That was when he noticed that he wasn't the only one to have decided to get an early start; there was another car in the lot. He recognised it from the other day, when a certain green Assistant District Attorney had unsuccessfully attempted to peel herself away from the press.

He supposed he shouldn't be too hard on her in that regard - the Neptune journalists stuck better than gum to a shoe - but part of him had to admit feeling a certain justification that she would eventually get what she deserved, especially now that she'd managed to land herself a promotion. He'd always had to work hard for any kind of break in life; his sports scholarship to Hearst, his stint with the Marines, his Deputy position and, later, his own promotion to Sheriff. Even though not everyone could stomach his methods he was still the law in this town, and he worked as hard as he needed to in order to maintain that level of comfort.

Sauntering into the building, he took the stairs two at a time and passed through the still-dark bullpen. He was planning on having visitors early; Sacks had made a pretty decent bust on his shift the night before and now had two men down in the lock-up that ought to make Miss O'Malley sit up and take notice. He smirked to himself as he flicked on the light in the new interrogation room (once the viewing room into the interrogation room) and made to take away one of the two uncomfortable steel chairs when he turned and saw something that made him feel instantly sick to his stomach.

The two way glass that would have looked into the room the newcomer to the station was operating from was no longer see-through. It had, in fact, been plastered completely with pictures of grinning, half-naked men. Their well-oiled washboard abs blind-sided Lamb and he groaned, lifting a hand to start peeling them off and blinking in frustration once he realised that they had been applied from her side of the room. The silence in that room - where she was no doubt trying not to snicker to herself over her petty triumph - was deafening. There was no way he could let this go down - no matter what her issues were, the fact remained that there was only one room left in which to interview the scumbags they brought in, and it didn't look good to have the Sheriff's Department interrogation wallpapered in Tall, Dark and Barely Clothed.

Don clenched his jaw, shoved his hands resolutely in the pockets of his oversized Sheriff's jacket and ultimately attempted to keep a hold on his temper as he stormed from the room to stand in her doorway.

"I suppose you think you're _funny_."

She'd heard the groan from the new interrogation room, and hadn't even needed to look up from her case file in order to allow herself the satisfied smirk she'd worked hard until past 10 the night before to earn. Amanda flipped a page, and pretended that she didn't notice the Sheriff now looming in her doorway. When he spoke she forced herself to jump slightly, as though startled anyone but her should be in the office at such an early hour.

"I'm sorry?" she asked, widening her eyes into a doe-like stare that had used to drive her ex crazy. Maybe it worked on men universally, because Lamb looked ready to start foaming at the mouth. She had known that doing this would start something between them - he wouldn't be able to stand being one-upped by her - but she was okay with that, really. At the end of the day, Don Lamb could stand to be taught a few lessons in terms of hypocrisy and double standards, and she wouldn't mind being the one who knocked that rather monumental chip from his shoulder.

"You should be," he fired back at her, shifting his weight as he obviously measured his words. She wondered if she should make some kind of crack about him having finally learned how to think, breathe and do something physical all at the one time. "I don't even have words for how unprofessional that is," he continued, pointing at the wall. "I expect you to take it all down before anyone else gets here and is offended by it."

"Ohhh," she replied, glancing at the men - she had her fair share on this side of the glass as well - as though she had just cottoned on to his intent. "I'm so sorry, Sheriff. I hadn't realised that you would be offended. I mean," she held up one hand helplessly, "When I noticed Sack's choice of reading material, I just assumed that we could all take certain liberties with one another." At this point, she allowed a tell-tale gleam to spark in her dark eyes.

His eyes narrowed in response. "Cut the crap, O'Malley," he said, finally dropping the pretence of the 'Miss' he had allowed her to hide behind. If she was going to be working here, then she'd get the same treatment from him anyone else got. "Pull it down, or the Mayor will hear about the continuing lack of moral integrity of his choice in District Attorneys."

She finally snapped. "You keep _saying_ that," she snapped, "but I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't think this," she indicated the pictures on the wall, "is any less immoral than you or your Deputies reading skin mags on duty, or talking inappropriately about _me_." She shrugged, her head canting to one side. "What's good for one set ought to be good for the other."

"Don't flatter yourself," he growled, forcing an unimpressed look onto his face. "You're nothing special - just a mouthpiece with an attitude."

Amanda felt her mouth fall open in shock at his crassness, and was prepared to turn up the volume. Let him see just what a mouthpiece with _attitude_ was capable of! He cut her off in the most infuriating way; holding one hand out to her to make her think twice about speaking and then just continuing on with his hyper-masculine diatribe.

"Clearly things will change around here - for everyone. I'll keep the boys in check."

"Oh," she threw back. "_That_ fills me with confidence!"

He was still clenching his jaw; she hoped that it locked on him and he'd be at least even temporarily prevented from spouting his bullshit. "Just get that shit off the glass. I have suspects to interview."

Oh no the fuck he _didn't_.

The door had closed behind him, but she was still staring at it as though it had betrayed her by letting him through in the first her anger at how unfairly he had reacted, Amanda almost forgot that she had wanted to piss him off. She remembered just in time to make her feel justified in her judgement of him, her hand white-knuckled around the pen that she began to click the end of furiously as her mind kicked into gear.

Did he think that he could speak to her that way and get away with it? They might have been sharing breathing space, but he wasn't her boss! Amanda allowed herself to seethe at her desk for a moment until she could feel herself starting to calm down from the immediate indignity of having to deal with him. When she thought that she was capable of modifying her workspace without giving him one hell of a show in the process, she began to remove the glossy pages from the two-way mirror. It was an exercise in shaming her on his part, she thought, and that pissed her off all the more. She could just imagine him on the other side, _smirking_ as she begrudgingly complied.

She'd have the last laugh. She was heading straight out to the store when she was done, to buy them out of brown paper, or tin foil, or whatever the hell she could get her hands on. There was no way she was going to work in a fishbowl.

He had gone straight to the kitchen after leaving her, so annoyed that she had picked up their interaction the day before and turned it around on a dime. It was lucky for him that he had managed to shock her with his directness; if she'd had a chance to get her side of the argument to stand up then he might not have been so lucky. But a win was a win, and he hadn't given her time to have a shot at any kind of last word on the matter. He made himself a coffee - black, because he knew Fiorente's tendency to drink straight from the carton - and thanked his lucky stars.

Once he had reached the relative safety of his man-cave, Don settled behind his computer. His irritation at not being up to set up his perps and knock 'em down early was palpable. Because he was certain that she would take her sweet time removing her handiwork, he did the only thing he could really do under these circumstances.

He began to dig deeper into her family connection with the Fitzpatricks.


End file.
